by Isaac Stormm
His eyes opened wide. The rain a refreshing spray trying to revive him. He wondered why heaven looked like this. Why water pummeled him. Why no one greeted him after his painful journey. Then he understood the rain isn’t what awakened him. It was the sharp crack of the rifle. The disgust coursed through his body causing the pain to quickly return. When he realized he was still of flesh, the view of himself from above just an illusion. The cursed world refused to part with him. He lay on a slope partway down to the riverbed, his clothing absorbing the force that had stopped him—a thorn bush. His head began to throb again. He found his left arm still moved and he used it to wipe away the dirty runnels of blood that pooled around his lips. His hand moved up, feeling his forehead. Fingers felt a deep gash though no pain came from it. He stared up at the clouds, the ones that forsook him. He reached down under the layer of clothing, feeling for the wounds. Under the tightness of the magazine pouches, his stomach felt slippery and he felt the tiny entrance wound. He moved to his left shoulder and felt another, his worry confirmed when he felt the exit hole. It seemed a gap he could put half his index finger over. Gritting his teeth, he rolled over on the wounded shoulder, the throb causing him to almost scream. He felt along his back. Nothing. The bullet was still inside.
He heard another gunshot. He knew they would come looking. He felt for his AK. Its absence meant he had just one other option. Pulling his shawl away, he reached into his pants pocket and retrieved the Makarov pistol. Only he and Cyrus were allowed to carry them, a symbol of authority. He had never shot it though, due to a shortage of ammunition. The pistol had one clip with 8 rounds. There were no spares. He laid it against his heart and gripping it tighter, raised his head enough to see a better position within crawling distance. If he was to make a final stand, he wanted to at least give himself a better shot at succeeding. Waking up had soured him to martyrdom for now, and he looked for more places to hide, discovering a tangle of waist-high bushes that ran along the bottom of the cliff. From there spurted vines that crawled up to Cyrus's former vantage point. His hand started to clutch something jagged. A rock. He knew he must roll again, and over the shard of rock that his hand held for it was anchored in the dirt. He worked up his mind, focusing on a singular thought. To move one more time. His body felt more numb thanks to the rain, which cooled instead of ached. His bones seemed to creak as he began to wrench himself over on his stomach. He bit into his lip, the pain returning with a rush. His sounds became a low hum begging to burst into a scream. The movement carried him over the rock, scraping him hard just above his stomach wound. Forearms steadied him and he begin to angle himself toward the vegetation. He extended his hand, sliding it along the ground. Then he moved the rest of his body in kind. Dizziness began to fill his head again. The world started spinning. Rocking from side to side he kept on, the will to survive fighting with the overwhelming urge to pass out. He made himself roll one more time. He felt the edge of the skinny branches and reached out for them. Clutching fistfuls of them with both hands, he pulled himself further into them, dragging the side of his face through the wet dirt, feeling the branches snap back into place and cover him completely.
The Al-Quds team fanned out, with Zarin walking down to the spot where he had observed Khani for several minutes through his binoculars. The convoy was gone and he knew the hesitation in the Kurds’ willingness to attack meant that their leader had thought of a better place. Khani was considered one of the wiliest of the Kurdish bandits. He was one of a handful of leaders of the ethnic group that still believed part of a Kurdish homeland should include northern Iran. Zarin knew that a Kurdish state was a real possibility, but in Iraq not Iran. And certainly not southern Turkey, where bandits had been fighting just as long as they been fighting here. But, he knew why they didn’t just stay in Iraq. They were driven by a nationalistic fervor and dreams. An age-old recipe that came in second only to religion when invoking a determination to fight. As much as he hated the Kurds, he at least had an inkling of admiration for their grit and fighting ability, even though he knew they could never win against Tehran.
He looked at some of the men helping each other down past him onto the riverbed. Now he wished he had a poncho. He gave a quick glance up at the sky, rubbed his wet face, and turned and headed for the shelter of a tree.
Wasir stared between the laces of branches at the boots. He breathed slower, deeper, afraid he might be heard even though the raindrops were much louder. The boots stepped closer, and it seemed the man was right over him. He noticed the sound of water growing louder for a few seconds. It was then he realized the man was relieving himself, even though none of it trickled down on him. The boots turned away, becoming a pair of legs then a figure leaving his view. Water filled his eyes, not from above but within. He rubbed at the tears, then cursed himself for such a feminine act. A true leader never cried unless the pain became unbearable. He knew his body still had a ways to go before reaching the threshold. This was the first time he was relieved Cyrus was not here. His mind remained cloudy and difficult to catch a thought. If he stayed here, he knew no one would save him. His body would become food for the wolves and other natural hunters that were the real stewards of this land. He had to try doing something that his body no longer remembered. Even if he succeeded, he knew his chances remained grim. I am Allah’s Warrior, he told himself. I must try to…His body tingled and in slow motion, the legs began to draw up. He felt the dizziness waiting to pounce again. He closed his eyes and repeated the sentence, wanting to add the final word. Pain shot through his torso, pooling in his feet and rebounding back into his mind. His hands wanted to begin pulling again. Then everything stopped. He breathed slow once more and looked through the branches. More of them were back.
Clouds blanketed the horizon and forced them to climb an extra 4,000 feet. Now, the sunshine bored in through the windscreen and reflected off the sunglasses of Colonel Peter Kelly. He looked over at co-pilot Captain Jason Sauls moving his finger over a tablet checking the predicted weather forecast. Sauls noticed his gaze and showed him the display. Continuous blobs of red and yellow moved swiftly across the outline of southern Armenia and filled most of Azerbaijan. It was the same stuff meteorologists might show millions of people each day in their living rooms. Powerful thunderstorm cells. Lots of them.
Kelly acknowledged him and looked at the control panel. They were riding a tailwind, adding 30 knots to their 360 knot airspeed. Problem was, this was the route to the sampling area over Azerbaijan. Below them lay the mountainous border of Armenia being drenched in relentless showers and Kelly watched lightning burn through clouds in the distance and wondered if they could beat the front’s forward edges in time. Sampling could still take place during the inclement weather although the old bird might take a beating. And collection in problematic conditions could bolster Iran’s deniability claims.
He hoped otherwise. Only he knew what they were after. The rest of the crew was kept in the dark about what they were supposed to find. Only when the computers began transmitting data back to the White House would they find out. He expected there would be quite a few gasps.
The last of them turned and left. They had not come close to the bush again and walked a ways past him. He waited a few more minutes before trying to move. Instead of pulling himself to the riverbed, he went the opposite way toward the cliff face just his body’s length away. With red slobber swinging from his lips, he grunted with each slight movement, imagining himself doing something natural that at the moment felt impossible. Standing. He reached out, feeling the hard rock beneath the thin layer of grass. Looking up at the sky, sucking in the clean smell of rain, he dug his fingernails deep and pulled himself up to his knees. Moving one foot underneath, he pushed and grumbled, another scream wanting to burst forth. He bit his lip hard and sucked in a deep breath, exhaling with a gravelly wheeze. The other foot planted and pushed and he turned himself around, placing his back against the surface. His legs straightened, the dizziness not returning. He looked to hi
s left and right making sure whatever path he took was clear. Now came the hardest part of all. That first step.
Zarin crested the top of the mountain and started down to the clearing. Their search revealed nothing. And he reckoned the spattering of blood down the slope and the AK with a broken strap meant the man was in the worst possible situation. Wounded and unarmed. There were no villages here for miles, and as the call transmitted for extraction by helicopter, he looked forward to winding down by writing his report. He planned to embellish the fact that it was his group seeing the most combat in the past year and moving itself to the head of the column as Al-Qud’s deadliest unit. In other words, a commendation from Tehran. Not for his men, but for himself.
Chapter Four
“We’ll make it.” Kelly nudged the throttles a little more to bring the plane to 390 knots. The tailwind was gone and Sauls scrolled back from the target area to their present position and turned the tablet off. Looking at the instrument panel’s display, an LCD tunable from everything to compass, altitude indication, radar and aircraft vitals, he zoomed out on the compass and saw the target area less than 40 miles away.
“Get the computers up, start the test program now,” he radioed to the operators.
“Patch me through to Garvey,” Kelly said to the operations center at Aviano. Garvey was the code name for the White House.
“Roger, patching through now.”
A few seconds later, a familiar voice answered. “Garvey here.”
Kelly knew it was Secretary Mitchell. They would be in the Oval Office now, seeing them with their laptops, ready to study the data. “This is Blue Boy. We’ll be in the target area within 15 minutes.”
“Affirmative. The class is gathering, ready to hear from you.”
Anderson looked over at Mitchell speaking into his computer. He wore a headset with a microphone and pressed a few keys, before removing it. “Thirty minutes until game time.”
“Good.” There was a knock at the door, then it opened. In came Krause again. Behind him was Greene. They took seats on the sectional and Anderson couldn’t get the Skype connection confirmed. “How do you work this damn thing?” Krause sprang up and came over and saw the screen black. He knew his boss was computer illiterate, and when he saw the green text on the black screen reminiscent of the old MS – DOS days, he knew how bad it was.
“We’ll have to start over,” he suggested, being as tender as possible. He brought the background screen up and selected the Skype icon.
“I did that.” The screen went blank again.
There had been intermittent problems with Skype before but only once or twice in the last few years it was used by the administration. Now at its most important moment, Krause realized they might be left high and dry with no connection to Grozner. “Just a minute.” He went back to the sectional and began typing on a laptop. Anderson shook his head. Sometimes these damn technological marvels’ only virtues were that they could be a pain in the ass. He tried starting over again. Clicked the icon and up came the confirmation that a secure transmission was under way. He didn’t expect Grozner to be in front of him yet, but suspected he was in his office with his respective ministers.
Krause returned and looked at the screen. “Yes. Everything is working now.” He noticed Anderson’s frustration. Here they were at one of the most crucial moments in world history and everything could’ve gone south because of a glitchy server somewhere.
The door knocked again before Krause could sit and he opened it. It was a butler.
The phone rang. Anderson answered; it was the gate. “Sir, it’s the Israeli ambassador. He wishes to see you immediately.” Anderson lowered the receiver holding his hand over its mike. “Who told Moreland to come here?”
“I did, sir,” Krause said, ready to be scolded. “Well, actually, I didn’t but he insisted after Grozner phoned him. I was speaking with him at the time on another matter when they put me on hold and they told him.”
“My permission from now on.” He snuggled the receiver again. “Yes, let him in.”
“Mister President.” It was Grozner staring at him from the screen. Anderson didn’t realize the moment Grozner appeared. “Please forgive me. We needed our ambassador there, to personally present you plans for any future steps we may take. Again, I apologize.”
Anderson didn’t say anything. Then he decided to change the topic. “Who else is there with you?”
“Defense minister Metzer. Mossad chief Philpot and the leader of our Special Operations unit called Depth Corps, Jessy Foxmann.”
What is Foxmann doing there? Anderson got the impression Grozner was already implementing a plan and going to do it whether the American government approved or not. There were no Joint Special Operation command (JSOC) heads even notified of what might’ve taken place let alone sharing the Oval Office. He didn’t like it. “Please give us a heads up next time.”
“Of course. My apologies.”
A square with Mitchell’s face appeared in the upper right of Anderson’s screen. “Mister President. Mister Prime Minister, please acknowledge that you can see me. If so I will now move each of you to the upper left and permit the screen to take in the data stream from the aircraft.” Both men confirmed themselves on each other’s screens and their faces shrunk and a black box appeared with random letters in groups of four underlined columns.
“Beginning from left to right, you have air density, water content, wind speed and percentage of xenon isotopes. This is the most important one. You will see all numbers begin streaming rapidly. If isotopes are detected, you’ll see numbers in red. Since it was an underground detonation, don’t expect the numbers to rise beyond single digits.”
“Sir, the Israeli ambassador,” Krause said. Anderson never heard him enter. He also noticed he wasn’t carrying a laptop or tablet. Just a briefcase. Krause offered him a seat next to him, and he sat down on the edge, holding the briefcase at his feet with both hands.
Anderson thought the man appeared nervous, like it was his first day at school.
Mitchell pressed a few keys, sending a coded message to blue boy. It returned it with an authenticator code meaning it was ready to commence testing. “Ready to begin, sir.”
“Go ahead.” Anderson watched the screen, forgetting about where he was or anyone else around him, just the lives of those little numbers, one set under each letter group reading zero.
The Constant Phoenix emerged from a cloud, sunlight glinting off its silver wings above a brown landscape visible between hazy patches of gray tuft. “Start the sampling,” Kelly told the crew. The analysts activated the external collection tubes which hugged the fuselage and contained layers of dense filters able to capture the tiniest particle. Sensors detected the differences and routed the information to their screens. Numbers began racing as millions of particles penetrated, sending their compositions onward into spheres organized in the fuselage.
Anderson watched only the isotope indicator. The other numbers continued racing. “How long does this take?”
“The route they are flying should bring confirmation in less than ten minutes.” Mitchell briefly glanced at the others and saw the reflection of the screens in their eyes. The ambassador’s eyes met his for a moment then reverted back to looking at Krause’s screen. Anderson looked at Grozner and wondered for a brief second if he didn’t actually want there to be a positive reading. He then looked back at the numbers. The isotope reading went from 0 to 1 then back to 0. Anderson waited as more than a minute passed then had to ask. “What did that mean?”
“Let’s see if it happens again.” Mitchell watched the number tick 1 then 0 quicker than an eye blink. It should be rising.
Anderson looked at the other numbers. They hovered at steady numerals.
“There it goes again,” Krause mentioned, the ambassador nodding, watching the anomaly.
Zeros. Nothing but zeros. Anderson caught Grozner looking a bit confused and muttering something unintelligible to someone off camera.
“Mr. President. Six minutes and there have only been three positives—
“A fourth.” Mitchell caught it before Grozner’s last words.
“What’s going on?” Anderson joined Grozner in confusion. “Has this ever happened before?”
“Blue boy, are your systems working properly?” Mitchell looked over at Anderson who was already looking at him for an answer.
“All systems functioning. All checked out in the pretest as well.”
“How much more time on this route?”